The Team

Simon Patterson

Simon Patterson joined Silver Lake in 2005 and is a Managing Director and co-head of the firm’s activities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He has managed Silver Lake investments across a variety of sectors including software, hardware, semiconductor, healthcare technology, internet and sports. Prior to joining Silver Lake, he was a member of the founding management team of the logistics software company GF-X (acquired by Descartes) and worked in various management roles at the Financial Times. Simon holds an M.A. from King’s College, Cambridge University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and received the Alexander Robichek Award for Finance.

Alice Webb

Alice Webb is Chief Executive Officer of Universal Music Group’s Mercury Studios. Prior to this Alice spent 15 years at the BBC in a number of roles. As Chief Operating Officer and then Director of BBC North she was a key figure in relocating key BBC departments and over 35,000 hours of output a year to MediaCityUK in Salford. Latterly, Alice was Director of BBC Children’s & Education - leading the BBC’s output and activity for Under 16’s – including CBeebies, CBBC and BBC Bitesize. She led the launch of the BBC’s hugely successful Bitesize Daily which supported millions of children across the country during the coronavirus pandemic. Alice lives with her family in the North West of England.

Claire Wills

Claire Wills is a senior partner at global law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and served as the firm’s London Managing Partner. She joined Freshfields in 1992, becoming a partner in May 2001. Claire is on the board of Surrey County Cricket Club and was formerly a Governor of Rugby School and also Chair of the Arnold Foundation Board, established by Rugby School in 2003.

Dame Pippa Harris

Pippa Harris is an Oscar-nominated, BAFTA award-winning, film and television producer, who established Neal Street Productions in 2003 alongside Sam Mendes and Caro Newling. The company’s work includes the hugely successful BBC series Call the Midwife which Pippa has executive produced for the past 15 years, as well as the multi award-winning First World War movie, 1917, which Pippa produced. Neal Street’s recent stage productions include the Tony award-winning The Lehman Trilogy, and the acclaimed productions of The Motive and The Cue, and The Hills of California. Pippa’s upcoming projects include movies of Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, and of Enid Blyton’s children’s classic The Magic Faraway Tree. She is also developing four movies for Sony, one on each of the Beatles, which will be directed by Sam Mendes. Following her tenure as Chair of BAFTA, Pippa is now their Vice President of Television. Pippa is also Chair of Charleston, a museum and gallery which was home of the Bloomsbury group. She is an Ambassador for Women for Women International. Before setting up Neal Street Productions, Pippa was the Head of Drama Commissioning for the BBC. In 2015 she was made a Dame in the Dissolution Honours.

Sir Ron Kalifa

Ron Kalifa is Chair of Financial Infrastructure at Brookfield Asset Management and a Non-Executive Director at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). He is a Senior Independent Director on the Court of Directors to the Bank of England, a Non-Executive Director of the England & Wales Cricket Board and a member of the Council of Imperial College, London. Additionally, Ron is Chair of the Sport Honours Committee.

Zeinab Badawi

Zeinab Badawi was born in Sudan – her family moved to London when she was two years old. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University and for an MA in history (awarded with a distinction) at SOAS, London University. Zeinab has worked extensively in the British media for four decades and is now best known for her work in the BBC’s international division at BBC World News TV and BBC World Service Radio on programmes such as 'Hard Talk', and 'Global Questions’ as well as a major 20-part tv series on the history of Africa which she produced and presented through her own production company for BBC World News.  She also produces and presents films on opera. Zeinab is President of SOAS London University, a member of the advisory board of the think tank Afro-Barometer, and of MINDS: the Mandela Institute for Development Studies; a trustee of Historic Royal Palaces, BBC Media Action (the charitable arm of the BBC), the Royal Opera House, the Hampstead Theatre in London and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. She is also a council member of the Arts Humanities and Research Council of UKRI; Zeinab was Chair of the Royal African Society (Patron: HRH the Duke of Cambridge); she has served on the board of the British Council, the National Portrait Gallery, the Institute of Historical Research, the Overseas Development Institute, and has been Chair of Article 19. Zeinab has received many awards including honorary doctorates from SOAS, the University of the Arts London, and York University and received the President’s Medal of the British Academy for her services to broadcasting and education and the United Nations Association-UK Sir Brian Urquhart award for distinguished service to the UN. She is also an honorary fellow of St Hilda’s, College Oxford University. Zeinab has four children.  

Lt Col Tom White MVO RM

Tom White is the Private Secretary to HRH The Princess of Wales. Tom commissioned into the Royal Marines in 2007. He spent time at regimental duty with 42 Commando and 45 Commando Royal Marines and has led military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, he has served within the British Defence Staff in the United States and the United States Central Command. He was appointed as equerry to HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2020.